The Knicks need to make one resolution for 2013: Don’t mess it up. Don’t mess up the great chemistry they’ve had so far, and don’t mess up the way they’ve played to get to the top of the Atlantic Division.

Raymond Felton, the starting point guard, won’t be back for another month and the hope is that Amar’e Stoudemire, who made his season debut in the Knicks’ 105-100 loss to the Trail Blazers, will be back to being himself sooner rather than later.

Jrue Holiday had 26 points and 10 assists, Evan Turner added 22 points and 13 rebounds, and the Philadelphia 76ers rang in the new year with a 103-99 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night.

During an undefeated five-week run by the Los Angeles Clippers, the Denver Nuggets were just another team they beat along the way. The second time around, the Nuggets were the team that ground the Clippers’ streak to a halt.

Amare Stoudemire stood up from the bench and the fans rose with him, a booming ovation filling Madison Square Garden as Stoudemire walked to the scorer’s table to enter a game for the first time this season.

Vince Carter scored 23 points, O.J. Mayo and Darren Collison each added 15 to help the Dallas Mavericks break their six-game losing streak with a 103-94 win over the Washington Wizards on Tuesday night.

69 comments on “Knicks Morning News (Wednesday, Jan 02 2013)”

A few observations from last night:
It looks like Felton is going to be sorely missed for the next month. It’s his penetration that leads to a lot of ball movement. Also, as a few commentators pointed out, Felton’s absence forces Jason Kidd to play beyond his “pay grade.” I think Jason Kidd’s most appropriate role on offense is “Director of Ball Movement.” This is different from playing point guard, which, as we see, he’s incapable of at this point in his career. Since we’re heading to nfl playoffs, I think Kidd would be late career Marino or Payton Manning as a pocket passer rather than rg3.

On defense it’s the same. Kidd is still great in the team defender role, but horrible in the on ball point defender role. At least on defense, Shump coming back would be huge, as it would allow Kidd to guard the 2.
Felton’s absence also forces Melo into the LBJ playmaking role that is above his “pay grade,” as we saw last year. Melo might be good as a pnr ball handler, but even ruru will admit that Melo leading the offense isn’t sustainable, as we saw at the beginning of last year.
I think playing with Sheed would be good for Stat. From what I could see, Stat wasn’t being lazy on d. It’s that his rust was a bad combination with his poor instincts. While Sheed isn’t the best help defender himself anymore, he’s a great talker. That’s what stat needs more than anything on d. Sheed also wants to shoot threes anyway so wouldnt take away from stat’s pick and roll. I could see that stat handled Woodson’s criticisms well, showing that he wants to be coached. When we come back from time away, our best skills come back before our worst. I think it’s the same here. Stat won’t become Duncan but I’m confident he will get better.

Amar’e looked incredibly slow last nite. But i’m sure glad he’s back. I remember when he used to run the floor like a wing. Now he runs the floor like a big man. That may not necessarily be a bad thing. Though i’m sure he’ll look different when he’s finally in game shape and closer to 100%, it may be a sign that he’s evolving into an old school big. Which of course there is a lack of in the league. And even with his athleticism fading, he still has more than enough to make a serious mark playing like what purists would call a traditional big. What I see (although he wasn’t very effective or good last night) is a change in his mentality. Beside the fact that he looks physically strong, he seems like he’s more willing to physically impose his will. I mean he looked like a big man out there lol..as opposed to looking like a big wing. That’s what I saw. He was awful on defense, but if he keeps that grind it out mentality and keeps worrying less about makin it look pretty he will improve in that area. And when his timing and shot returns I think he will be a matchup nightmare as long as he doesn’t try too much down low as he is not a seasoned low post scorer yet. It burns that we lost last night, but i’m ok for now after seeing Stat return because I have faith that Woody will figure it out. Having Kidd will go a long way to ensuring that the adjustment period won’t take so long

I am actually mildly optimistic about STAT after last night. Yes, he looked obviously rusty, and the Blazers absolutely went right after him on the defensive end. But that WAS a very nice help block he had, and it seemed like defensively he got after it a little better in the 2nd half.

On the offensive end, he didn’t score on any of his post moves, but they were all good shots that he was able to create – within a few feet of the basket, and his post moves created space– nothing was overly contested. Eventually those will go in, and his jumper will come back.

And it was really good to see him throw down a couple, as well as finish in traffic on good feeds by Prigs and Melo.

btw – maybe Tyson is injured or something, but a very important stat from last night that basically led to our defeat last night:

Yes, maybe Tyson was covering for other people’s mistakes, taking him out of rebounding position, but one defensive rebound in 34 minutes out of your DPOY-winning 7 foot center is not going to get it done — another reason I think we should see more of the Tyson/Camby combo going forward. Yes, spacing will be an issue, but both move very well off the ball, and Melo still requires a double team so there should be some opportunities even with 2 center-types playing together.

I only saw the second half, but Amar’e looked about as good as anyone could hope considering this is basically his preseason. It was nice to see him throw down with some bounce, and one of his finishes (a kind of twisting, almost reverse layup with his right hand on the PnR from Prigs I think) is exactly the kind of move that Tyson, for all his ability to crush things, does not have the finesse to pull off. Didn’t see him attempt a jumper, but from what I read his tries in the first half didn’t go so well…

Anyway, he is a player you can build a great offense around and hopefully his presence off the bench convinces Woody to put JR in the starting line-up. JR’s earned it, and we cannot continue to start two total offensive non-entities like Brewer and Kurt Thomas and come out flat to start games.

Brian Cronin: I happened to have MSG on in the background and I just saw JR’s put back to cut the lead to 4 with just over a minute left again. Wow, so amazing.

Yea..I don’t agree with the number of shots he’s been taking but he has been playing great ball as of late. On both ends. If he ever loses the notion that he can be Jordan he will be a phenomenal JR Smith..which given his incredible skill set, should be a perennial all star. I think his game fits rite in between Stat and Melo. He’s like Jamal Crawford on steroids lol. Seriously..he’s a better defender, shooter, and rebounder. Passing they are almost even but crawford’s a much better ball handler. Is his play more a result of woody bein able to reach him, or has he finally matured? Whatever the case may be, I LIKE IT!! lol

The Knicks are allowing teams to shoot for an insanely high eFG% night after night after night. Keep in mind that the league average eFG% is .490, then look at how the Knicks’ opponents have shot the ball in recent games:

That’s pretty pathetic. The Knicks are now 25th in the league in defensive eFG% and heading to the bottom with alarming speed. They’re not a mediocre defensive team right now, they are a POOR defensive team. They are a mess on the defensive end and there are going to be a lot more frustrating losses if they don’t figure it out.

JK47: That’s pretty pathetic. The Knicks are now 25th in the league in defensive eFG% and heading to the bottom with alarming speed. They’re not a mediocre defensive team right now, they are a POOR defensive team. They are a mess on the defensive end and there are going to be a lot more frustrating losses if they don’t figure it out.

SA may put up 130 points tomorrow night. Who in the world is going to guard Parker?

Excellent point by this CBS guy John Schmeelk – certainly matches up to what my impressions were:

“In first halves this year, the Knicks are the 28th-worst defensive team in the league if you go by points per 100 possessions. In the second half, their defense improves to 8th-best in the league. If you dig deeper, the Knicks are the No. 3 defensive team in the entire NBA in the fourth quarter. I somehow doubt Woodson’s defensive schemes change in the fourth quarter. The only explanation is that the Knicks are playing harder. Of course, the implication is that for the other three quarters, the team isn’t putting the effort necessary in on defense.”

Frank:
Excellent point by this CBS guy John Schmeelk – certainly matches up to what my impressions were:

“In first halves this year, the Knicks are the 28th-worst defensive team in the league if you go by points per 100 possessions. In the second half, their defense improves to 8th-best in the league. If you dig deeper, the Knicks are the No. 3 defensive team in the entire NBA in the fourth quarter. I somehow doubt Woodson’s defensive schemes change in the fourth quarter. The only explanation is that the Knicks are playing harder. Of course, the implication is that for the other three quarters, the team isn’t putting the effort necessary in on defense.”

Those are really interesting statistics regarding defense by quarters. Would be interesting to see if the Heat follow the same pattern, I recall a few games earlier this year where they were getting hammered by inferior teams and then ratcheted up their defensive intensity in big way late to pull out the win.

What kills me about that Amar’e quote (which seems like it’s obviously a dig at D’Antoni) is that D’Antoni hired Woodson as his defensive coordinator before Amar’e proceeded to play some of the worst defense I have ever seen to start last season.

I have not idea if I properly linked the link. Much of that is a dig at D’Antoni but on the other hand he bounced from HS to HS, chose not to go to college … The proper follow up question would be did he ever ask.

On his defense I will give him a pass for the time being since he has been back all of one game, but nothing he did looked any different than when he was in mid season form, from the weakside block to the being oblivious to cutting or back door movement.

flossy: What kills me about that Amar’e quote (which seems like it’s obviously a dig at D’Antoni) is that D’Antoni hired Woodson as his defensive coordinator before Amar’e proceeded to play some of the worst defense I have ever seen to start last season.

How many assistants does MDA have now, and how long did it take before Dwight said guys needed to be taught defense, not simply told where they should be?

I think it was like a week ago.

MDA controls practices, and if you followed some of the good reporting over the MDA break-up, not many of those practices were used to work on defense in a hands-on manner. Though the lack of practice time in a condensed schedule obviously was a big part of it.

Nick C.: He said the same thing about never being taught defense when he first got to NY.http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2010/11/26/amare-stoudemire-says-nobody-ever-taught-him-defense/I have not idea if I properly linked the link. Much of that is a dig at D’Antoni but on the other hand he bounced from HS to HS, chose not to go to college … The proper follow up question would be did he ever ask.On his defense I will give him a pass for the time being since he has been back all of one game, but nothing he did looked any different than when he was in mid season form, from the weakside block to the being oblivious to cutting or back door movement.

He had two blocks. One was not recorded. Amar’e was much better defensively under Woodson last season.

ruruland: He had two blocks. One was not recorded. Amar’e was much better defensively under Woodson last season.

yeah, right after he came in, he knocked it into the backboard but it ended up being a hoop anyway.

keep in mind that Amare has always been needed on the floor by his teams for huge minutes for his scoring ability, so it makes some sense (in PHX especially) that D’Antoni would stress not getting in foul trouble over playing hard D. if he is only playing 25 minutes or so for this team, he should be able to play at least a bit better D, I’d think.

jon abbey: yeah, right after he came in, he knocked it into the backboard but it ended up being a hoop anyway.keep in mind that Amare has always been needed on the floor by his teams for huge minutes for his scoring ability, so it makes some sense (in PHX especially) that D’Antoni would stress not getting in foul trouble over playing hard D. if he is only playing 25 minutes or so for this team, he should be able to play at least a bit better D, I’d think.

Or MDA actually doesn’t coach defense as his players say.

Pick and roll coverage probably cost those Suns teams at least two championships (getting hosed once notwithstanding). Just a lack of reps IMO. had they simply been decent, no one beats them in the playoffs.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq8Zpfxbq14

jon abbey: yeah, right after he came in, he knocked it into the backboard but it ended up being a hoop anyway.

keep in mind that Amare has always been needed on the floor by his teams for huge minutes for his scoring ability, so it makes some sense (in PHX especially) that D’Antoni would stress not getting in foul trouble over playing hard D. if he is only playing 25 minutes or so for this team, he should be able to play at least a bit better D, I’d think.

I’ve been hopeful along these lines as well, but watching Amare last night and the more I think about his defensive play, effort has rarely been his problem, at least to my eyes. So much of frontcourt defending at the highest level is about controlling space – cutting off perimeter penetration while also blocking passing angles, rotating just the right amount to stop a pass to a cutter while still being able to recover to your man, challenging shots without completely getting out of position etc. Amare has just abysmal instincts for all of those aspects of defense. Nothing was more indicative to me of Amare’s defense than seeing him move away from his man (Aldridge) when he had the ball last night, consequently allowing a wide open lay-up. Just horrible defensive intuition, and while I do believe that part of that comes from never having been coached on defense, that understanding of space on the defensive end is also a skill, and Amare just doesn’t seem to have it.

I think that with a lot of hard work by him and Woodson and schemes that minimize his defensive impact (I hate playing him at center) you can neutralize these things, but while Amare has the physical traits to be a good defensive player there are other aspects to “talent” besides the physical and I don’t think Amare is a talented defensive player. No amount of coaching or effort is going to change that.

also the problem continues to be that he is much better offensively at the 5 but terrible defensively there. Chandler and Camby should really be playing all 48 minutes at the 5, but this is where we start to run into the issues I was talking about over the summer, we have a lot of guys who are very good at one end and awful at the other.

jon abbey:
also the problem continues to be that he is much better offensively at the 5 but terrible defensively there. Chandler and Camby should really be playing all 48 minutes at the 5, but this is where we start to run into the issues I was talking about over the summer, we have a lot of guys who are very good at one end and awful at the other.

I continue to think the Amare/Sheed front-court combo may have some potential with Sheed acting as token floor-spacing for Amare on O while giving him some protection on D. Even if teams only half respect Sheed’s shooting I think it has the potential to mitigate some of the spacing issues without fatally compromising the D.

Re: Amare – this whole conversation re: him being taught defense just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Can’t say it better than this guy on twitter: “@Tikki24K @OpinesMine The problem is not holding himself accountable. Learn from Sheed, learn from Kurt, and get out there and compete.”

Stop talking about why you suck at something, pointing fingers at others. Even if it’s true, it makes no difference. Buckle down on the mental part of the game as much as you do on the physical part. Take as much pride in defense and rebounding as you obviously do in your muscles.

One thing that will help Amar’e on defense is playing with Sheed because he will constantly tell Amar’e where to go- Camby isn’t nearly as vocal on the defensive end and Chandler seems to be less vocal this year than last.
Also, when Woodson took over last year they really made the pnr simple for Amar’e- trap it and don’t leave the guard until someone tells you to (or at least that’s how it looked to me). If he just do that consistently it’d be a huge improvement. I can live with the late rotations (all of the Knicks bigs have been late in rotations plenty already this season) and giving up the occasional back door cut but the pnr defense has to improve.

thenamestsam: I’ve been hopeful along these lines as well, but watching Amare last night and the more I think about his defensive play, effort has rarely been his problem, at least to my eyes. So much of frontcourt defending at the highest level is about controlling space – cutting off perimeter penetration while also blocking passing angles, rotating just the right amount to stop a pass to a cutter while still being able to recover to your man, challenging shots without completely getting out of position etc. Amare has just abysmal instincts for all of those aspects of defense. Nothing was more indicative to me of Amare’s defense than seeing him move away from his man (Aldridge) when he had the ball last night, consequently allowing a wide open lay-up. Just horrible defensive intuition, and while I do believe that part of that comes from never having been coached on defense, that understanding of space on the defensive end is also a skill, and Amare just doesn’t seem to have it.

This is a perfect description of where Amare is lacking on D. He’s sort of the anti-KG, who does all those things to perfection – challenging without losing your own man, rotating to cutters, etc. I don’t know if he can ever learn that stuff, I just hope even at this late stage of his career he at least listens to guys like Sheed and Camby and makes an effort to become smarter on defense.

“I think just having a defensive coach for the first time in my career is going to help,” he said. “I’ve never been taught defense in my whole career, so to now have a coach that actually teaches defense and teaches strategies, and knows positioning and posture, how to guard different plays, it’s going to be helpful. I’m going to take it as a challenge, and I’m going to accept the challenge and try to improve as a player.”

Melo had 5 more FGA/36 and got to the line 3 more times per 36 without Amare.

it’s like a evil triangle – Amare can’t play on the floor with Tyson, Melo can’t play on the floor with Amare.

Hopefully Woodson can find a way through this.

Melo scored just fine with Amar’e on the floor in 27 games after the trade in 2011. It was pretty clear last night that in some sets Amar’e wasn’t sure where he was supposed to be but that should change with practice time- at least on the offensive end.

“I think just having a defensive coach for the first time in my career is going to help,” he said. “I’ve never been taught defense in my whole career, so to now have a coach that actually teaches defense and teaches strategies, and knows positioning and posture, how to guard different plays, it’s going to be helpful. I’m going to take it as a challenge, and I’m going to accept the challenge and try to improve as a player.”

that’s a little better, but it still is throwing other people under the bus – MDA, Gentry, and even Woodson from last year.

Two thoughts:

1) Stop blaming other people for your own shortcomings.
2) Stop congratulating yourself “taking on that challenge” – for doing what you should have already been doing your whole career. Reminds of something Chris Rock said:

“You know the worst thing about n****s? N****s always want credit for some shit they supposed to do. A n***a will brag about some shit a normal man just does. A n***a will say some shit like, “I take care of my kids.” You’re supposed to, you dumb motherfucker! What kind of ignorant shit is that? “I ain’t never been to jail!” What do you want, a cookie?! You’re not supposed to go to jail, you low-expectation-having motherfucker!”

Frank: that’s a little better, but it still is throwing other people under the bus – MDA, Gentry, and even Woodson from last year.

Two thoughts:

1) Stop blaming other people for your own shortcomings.
2) Stop congratulating yourself “taking on that challenge” – for doing what you should have already been doing your whole career. Reminds of something Chris Rock said:

“You know the worst thing about n****s? N****s always want credit for some shit they supposed to do. A n***a will brag about some shit a normal man just does. A n***a will say some shit like, “I take care of my kids.” You’re supposed to, you dumb motherfucker! What kind of ignorant shit is that? “I ain’t never been to jail!” What do you want, a cookie?! You’re not supposed to go to jail, you low-expectation-having motherfucker!”

I couldn’t care less what a guy says in a press conference after a practice- I’ve seen plenty of athletes take full responsibility for their short-comings and promise to do better and still make the same mistakes over and over again (every Tony Romo post big game press conference ever). Amar’e played passable defense in a very small sample size after Woodson took over last year- if throwing D’A or Gentry under a bus helps him get in the right mindset to get back to that, fine by me.

nicos: Melo scored just fine with Amar’e on the floor in 27 games after the trade in 2011. It was pretty clear last night that in some sets Amar’e wasn’t sure where he was supposed to be but that should change with practice time- at least on the offensive end.

Frank: that’s a little better, but it still is throwing other people under the bus – MDA, Gentry, and even Woodson from last year. Two thoughts:1) Stop blaming other people for your own shortcomings.2) Stop congratulating yourself “taking on that challenge” – for doing what you should have already been doing your whole career. Reminds of something Chris Rock said:“You know the worst thing about n****s? N****s always want credit for some shit they supposed to do. A n***a will brag about some shit a normal man just does. A n***a will say some shit like, “I take care of my kids.” You’re supposed to, you dumb motherfucker! What kind of ignorant shit is that? “I ain’t never been to jail!” What do you want, a cookie?! You’re not supposed to go to jail, you low-expectation-having motherfucker!”

haha, that’s a good bit, but i don’t really think it matters much how this reflects on Amar”s character or leadership. (I think he’s got the former in spades)

Knicks are fine in those areas. As long as Amar’e is commited to improving, that’s all that really matters. To me, his statement is much more a reflection of his ego.

Altnernatively, do you really think it benefits anyone if he says (regardless of what he believes) that he’s at fault for being a bad defender most of his career for whatever reasons?

That kind of humility is pretty much unattainable for proffesional athletes in team sports? You bring a lot heat upon yourself.?

Also, Frank, as we discussed, he is a poor communicator and often the words dont reflect what is really meant. He was trying to compliment Woodson not blame MDA. He frankly was being honest. MDA never taught him how to stand or how to hedge or where to go when the dribbler goes right or left. He pointed it out on some TV screen and said do it. He wasn’t blaming.

Frank:
Excellent point by this CBS guy John Schmeelk – certainly matches up to what my impressions were:

“In first halves this year, the Knicks are the 28th-worst defensive team in the league if you go by points per 100 possessions. In the second half, their defense improves to 8th-best in the league. If you dig deeper, the Knicks are the No. 3 defensive team in the entire NBA in the fourth quarter. I somehow doubt Woodson’s defensive schemes change in the fourth quarter. The only explanation is that the Knicks are playing harder. Of course, the implication is that for the other three quarters, the team isn’t putting the effort necessary in on defense.”

So glad this came out, I made this exact point in the thread last night. The Knicks have no hope of being an elite defensive team throughout the season, but I am willing to bet serious money that they will be monstrous in the playoffs. Just consider that 2011 Dallas, the team this particular squad most compares to, had a worse defense than the next year without Tyson Chandler, who won defensive player of the year on the Knicks. This team knows it can crush anyone at the end of games, and they care millions of times more about being healthy for the playoffs than about beating up on Portland for the full 48. Kidd and Chandler in particular look like they couldn’t give less of a fuck, and you can’t expect Melo to both score 40 and play elite defense at the PF position, not without serious injuries. Unless you care more about winning 60 than winning in the ECF, there is NOTHING to worry about except health.

Very unique and interesting view on sports and basketball in general. Also makes the work of guys like Berri seem utterly childish. Simply put, if I can reconstruct your work in 5 minutes in excel (like I can with WP and WS) it’s not good work.

“I think just having a defensive coach for the first time in my career is going to help,” he said. “I’ve never been taught defense in my whole career, so to now have a coach that actually teaches defense and teaches strategies, and knows positioning and posture, how to guard different plays, it’s going to be helpful. I’m going to take it as a challenge, and I’m going to accept the challenge and try to improve as a player.”

Very unique and interesting view on sports and basketball in general. Also makes the work of guys like Berri seem utterly childish. Simply put, if I can reconstruct your work in 5 minutes in excel (like I can with WP and WS) it’s not good work.

Hah, what a crock of horseshit. That’s a fantastic set of articles, but your assumption that “simpler means elementary” is utter nonsense.

Did you even read 2(a)(ii)? The one that demonstrates, as WP does, that there is no correlation between shot efficiency and usage rate?

The Honorable Cock Jowles: physical part. Take as much pride in defense and rebounding as you obviously do in your muscles.
That’s just not what leaders do.

Frank
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nicos says:

January 2, 2013 at 4:40 pm

One thing that will help Amar’e on defense is playing with Sheed because he will constantly tell Amar’e where to go- Camby isn’t nearly as vocal on the defensive end and Chandler seems to be less vocal this year than last.
Also, when Woodson took over last year they really made the pnr simple for Amar’e- trap it and don’t leave the guard until someone tells you to (or at least that’s how it looked to me). If he just do that consistently it’d be a huge improvement. I can live with the late rotations (all of the Knicks bigs have been late in rotations plenty already this season) and giving up the occasional back door cut but the pnr defense has to improve.

IS there ever an explanation for why a player’s shooting efficiency varies outside of: random?

A few commenters question this analysis:
A few things come to mind. One is from a statistical perspective, looking at R2 and concluding no relationship is not justified. R2 will tell you the fit of your model, which is not the same as saying that X is a good predictor of Y. That comes from hypothesis testing, so it would be nice to see what the corresponding p-values are if you were to also control for minutes played. The argument for a relationship between FGA and FG% really has to do with frequency and not raw numbers. If you do not adjust for minutes then you could see an absolute change in FGA but potentially no change in FGA/minute (which is what is typically argued). Adjusting by minutes gets over this.

And lastly, the unit of observation here is a player’s season over a year change. You are going to lose a ton of variation with this. I think a better way to address this problem is have the player/game be the unit of observation. I think this addresses the problem more, since the idea is “that as a specific player increases FGA…” but what we have here is an analysis that says “as FGA increases for a general player…”. You can have a lot of issues going on here that will inherently dampen your results.”

Very unique and interesting view on sports and basketball in general. Also makes the work of guys like Berri seem utterly childish. Simply put, if I can reconstruct your work in 5 minutes in excel (like I can with WP and WS) it’s not good work.

I second that recommendation. One of the best (and maybe my favorite) pieces of sports analysis I’ve read.

Simple isn’t bad. Often simple is better; just look at baseball analysis. The best predictor of future ERA simply uses strikeout and walk rates. The simply weighted projection systems is up there with the big boys in accuracy. The “best” offensive stat is linear weights: a pretty simple concept. Often complexity adds error, not accuracy or precision.

I should note one caveat: The mostly flat relationship between usage and shooting may be skewed, in part, by the fact that better shooters are often required to take worse shots, not just more shots—particularly if they are the shooter of last resort. A player that manages to make a mediocre shot out of a bad situation can increase his team’s chances of winning, just as a player that takes a marginally good shot when a slam dunk is available may be hurting his team’s chances. Presently, no well-known shooting metrics account for this (though I am working on it), but to be perfectly clear for the purposes of this post: neither does PER.

Shot creation is a complex thing: on one hand, teams try to get their better scorers to shoot more and their worse scorers to shoot less. One the other hand low usage players that are only asked to dunk of shoot open threes will have an “artificially” high efficiency, and high usage shot creators will often have an artificially low efficiency as they are asked to do more for the benefit of the team. Context matters. I don’t know of any way to handle this well statistically (yet); in my opinion the current solution to this problem is to take a comprehensive approach to player evaluation. Sometimes, efficiency should be looked at as a descriptor more than an evaluation. This is generally the approach someone like Zach Lowe takes, in addition to watching a lot of film. The win differential method used by Ben Morris is interesting and could provide some insights, but as is requires a larger sample (if I’m remembering correctly).

But yeah, the Knicks are extremely lucky that the East is so shitty. They literally could just suck for a few weeks and likely still lead the Atlantic. That’s a real blessing when you’re dealing with a team that is built to win in the playoffs. They’re almost guaranteed a top 4 seed in the playoffs. Which is awesome. Suck it, geography!!

But yeah, the Knicks are extremely lucky that the East is so shitty. They literally could just suck for a few weeks and likely still lead the Atlantic. That’s a real blessing when you’re dealing with a team that is built to win in the playoffs. They’re almost guaranteed a top 4 seed in the playoffs. Which is awesome. Suck it, geography!!

The 1996-97 Knicks won 57 games but that was only good enough for 3rd in the East. The Heat won 61 games and the Bulls 69. Knicks went 5-3 vs them. The Knicks in the 1st round faced the 6th seeded Hornets who won 54 games. The East that season had 6 teams win 54 or more games. The 8th seeded Webber led Bullets won 44 games.

The real funny part?? The Wolves (with a rookie Marbury) were the 6th seed in the West and won only 40 games!! The Top 4 seeds did all win 56 games or more with Utah winning 64. The 8th seed Clippers won 36 games.

So the lesson is the West wasnt always that much superior to the East lol.

Shot creation is a complex thing: on one hand, teams try to get their better scorers to shoot more and their worse scorers to shoot less. One the other hand low usage players that are only asked to dunk of shoot open threes will have an “artificially” high efficiency, and high usage shot creators will often have an artificially low efficiency as they are asked to do more for the benefit of the team. Context matters. I don’t know of any way to handle this well statistically (yet); in my opinion the current solution to this problem is to take a comprehensive approach to player evaluation. Sometimes, efficiency should be looked at as a descriptor more than an evaluation. This is generally the approach someone like Zach Lowe takes, in addition to watching a lot of film. The win differential method used by Ben Morris is interesting and could provide some insights, but as is requires a larger sample (if I’m remembering correctly).

Great post. I think many of us have articulated that quite a few different ways just since I’ve been here.

Thanks for link to those skepticalsports articles Juany – great reading even if very long and preventing me from doing real work.

Anyway – I made it through 2(a)(ii) and here were my thoughts. As usual, there is all kinds of confounding in a simple analysis of TS% vs. USG%. I don’t know the answer to this, but it seems likely that players who are truly inefficient (ie. TS 25%), so the right side of that graph will be artificially raised since those terribly inefficient players won’t really be allowed to shoot that often by their coaches.

The next part of this article that I loved was this:
“But as a minimum outcome, I think the data strongly supports my hypothesis: that many stats—especially rebounds—are exponential predictors. ”

I feel the same way about players – I don’t think that there is any doubt that Lebron is exponentially better than 99% of the other players in the NBA. As we saw in Cleveland, you can literally surround him with a bunch of scrubs (+Varejao) and go the NBA finals. IMHO his actual value is far greater than any other player in the league. Other players, like Durant, CP3, etc. are probably also 3x+ more valuable than league-average SF/PGs, but even that is barely accounted for by most models.

Simple is only better when you’re working with a conceptually valid model and statistically valid data. WP does neither, and doesn’t even attempt to address that problem. I love Morris’ work not because I agree with everything he says, but because he is willing to seriously back up and research EVERYTHING he says. He tackles the problem in as many different ways as possible, and analyzes everything from wins to the value of rebounds in excruciating detail. He also clearly comes out and says that box score stats are not linearly additive in terms of value, but that any “all in one” model is incredibly difficult to make without those linear weights. Basically, the only reason WP uses a linear fit is because that’s the easy thing to do, not the intellectually honest thing to do.

There’s also the little fact that Morris doesn’t act like he’s uncovered some fundemental truth about basketball that all other serfs must bow down to. I have never met anyone who does respectable research and feels the need to directly insult people who argue against their conclusions. In fact, the smartest people I’ve met are usually the most open minded about different perspectives, they appreciate someone who can point out a flaw in their work that they can then attempt to correct for. Berri is a straight up troll, you can literally tear apart the logic in every single step of his model, and he reacts by acting like you’re an idiot. Ad hominem attacks are what insecure people use to hide the fact that they’re not intelligent enough to offer a reasonable response

Love the move. When he shared the court with Chandler, he seemed to be looking to set up chandler for some easy buckets. However, Pairing him with Brewer gives Spurs the go to double Melo daring Brewer AND Camby to beat them.

Garson:
Twitter reports that Camby will most prob start at PF for Thomas…

Love the move. When he shared the court with Chandler, he seemed to be looking to set up chandler for some easy buckets. However, Pairing him with Brewer gives Spurs the go to double Melo daring Brewer AND Camby to beat them.

I’d much rather see a starting lineup of Kidd, JR, Melo, Camby, and Tyson. Between Prigs, Novak, and Amare on the 2nd unit, there should be enough scoring. As long as there is one of JR and Melo on the floor at a time, there should be enough backcourt scoring to go along with Amare.

Like you, I don’t think you can have both Camby and Brewer on the floor at the same time. We’ll basically be playing 3-on-5 on offense.

Juany8: In fact, the smartest people I’ve met are usually the most open minded about different perspectives, they appreciate someone who can point out a flaw in their work that they can then attempt to correct for.

Absolutely. Academics usually like to discuss and learn. Trolls/bullies insult, then run away when confronted.